LET US PUT THE LOVE FOR MUSIC BACK IN ‘AUDIOPHILE’

When I was asked to write this article, my immediate concern was that it could come across as overly critical to those who view themselves as “audiophiles” and support for those who do not want to have a tag attached to them. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, an audiophile “is a person who is very interested in and enthusiastic about equipment for playing recorded sound, and its quality”. Hidden in the absence of one word in this description lies the real problem.

The issue is that in the strictest sense of the word, “audio” means “sound” and “philos” means “to love”. Yet the particular dictionary meaning does not focus on the love for music, but rather enthusiasm about the equipment used to create the sounds audiophiles hear. Sound is just dispersed energy. It can be measured. Music is the result of sounds coming together to provide something pleasant. The pleasure derived cannot be measured. Music is absent from the dictionary meaning of the word in question.

Thus, there seems to be an over-emphasis on the equipment rather than the music it produces. It is for this reason that many music lovers do not want to be referred to as audiophiles. Of course, we first need equipment before we can hear any music. Sadly though, the skyrocketing prices of hi-fi equipment or the lust thereof often excludes Average Joe, who feel they cannot compete. This leads to “audiophile” often taking on the meaning of being arrogant and snobbish, and it deters many to explore the world of enjoying quality music.

I can appreciate my music as much as anyone else, with a system that is nowhere at the top of the list. The focus is on the enjoyment of the music. There are audiophiles who claim they can hear minute differences in equipment mere mortals cannot. This already sounds rather arrogant and it may be true for a fraction of listeners or dealers who are exposed to equipment all day. However, by the time you reach the age where the kids are no longer around to poke their fingers into your loudspeakers’ exposed tweeters, your hearing has also deteriorated. This is just the result of biological wear and tear and you are most likely unable to hear subtle differences that could likely exist. Even if you could, the question is this: Does it sound better or just different? Neither adjectives can be measured scientifically.

Many audiophiles are biased to start with, and some have been caught out. A good example is a blind test that was recently held between an 80 and a 500 000 (that’s five hundred thousand dollars), turntable. Except in this case, the 80-dollar vintage turntable got the most votes for sound quality in the blind test. The test was conducted by digitally recording the same song from the two turntables and then letting listeners decide which recording sounded the best, marked A and B. Almost 60% chose the cheap turntable’s rendition as the better sounding one. They simply were not able to discern any meaningful difference between two products at extremely opposed ends of the price spectrum.

Of course, the test was probably not fair as the source was digitised, but it was done so that it could be made available online so that more individuals could participate. The thing is that many of the respondents were not audiophiles. They chose according to how the music affected them. What if the test was conducted in a real environment where listeners could listen to the system, but the turntables were hidden behind a curtain? This would be more realistic, and the focus would be on hearing, not seeing. What if they could see which turntable was playing? They would naturally choose the more expensive one because of what they saw, not what they heard.

Of course, there are audiophiles that are saying blind tests are meaningless and should not be allowed. Well, are you listening with your eyes or ears? What the music sounds like seems to be irrelevant to many. Can you see the problem with the Cambridge Dictionary meaning of “audiophile”? If the focus is on loving the equipment rather than the music, something is definitely wrong.

It is thus important that we redefine the meaning of “audiophile” and apply the word as it should be interpreted – a love of music (not sound) first and foremost, and equipment a distant second.

Andries Oberholzer

Editor’s Note: I had nothing whatsoever to do with commissioning this article. Andries insisted on writing it. I have his email address, cellphone number and home address if anyone needs them.